Posts Tagged ‘ADK’

The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics and its Subaru Traveling Trainer team are partnering with the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), the New York State Department of Conservation (DEC), and other regional organizations to host education activities from August 7 to 14.

Focusing on the heavily visited Eastern High Peaks Wilderness Area, including the Van Hoevenberg Trailhead located at the Adirondak Loj and Heart Lake Program Center, the Hot Spot seeks to address the challenges associated with high concentrations of visitors to the region, including damage to alpine plants, trail erosion, human waste, and negative human/wildlife interactions. » Continue Reading.

An effort will be underway to promote proper planning and preparation through direct conversations with hikers at trailheads and on the trails in the High Peaks Wilderness, February 16-18, the upcoming Presidents’ Day Weekend.

The organizers hope to increase engagement between hikers and experienced backcountry users to reduce the number of search and rescue incidents in the Adirondacks and help to ensure the public has an enjoyable and safe outdoor experience. » Continue Reading.

ADK (Adirondack Mountain Club) has announced the release of the fifth edition of its popular trail guide, Eastern Trails, which is part of a substantial reconfiguration and revision of the Forest Preserve Series of Adirondack and Catskill guides.

Eastern Trails highlights some of the most popular and widely used trails in the region and provides the most updated information about entirely new trails, particularly on new Lake George Land Conservancy preserves. Eastern Trails was last issued in a new edition in 2012.

Local outfitter The Mountaineer recently partnered with Patagonia to support educational and research efforts this summer atop the highest peaks through a grant to the Adirondack High Peaks Summit Stewardship Program.

According to an announcement sent to the press, the grant will enable the program to educate hikers about the fragile nature of the alpine vegetation and conduct research on the populations of rare, threatened and endangered plant species. » Continue Reading.

ADK (Adirondack Mountain Club) and Adirondack Experience, The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake (ADKX), have announced a celebration of fire towers and the people who restore and maintain them.

Fire Tower Fever, a family-friendly event set for July 14, 2018, at Adirondack Experience, starts at 10 am and ends at 3 pm. In between, the day offers presentations, anecdotes from volunteers involved in tower restorations, book signings, guided hikes, an introduction to the ADK Fire Tower Challenge, and Smokey Bear-themed scavenger hunts. » Continue Reading.

The Adirondack Mountain Club’s ADK Stewardship Ambassador program, is a new volunteer program created to provide six recreationists to promote and advocate for the importance of protecting New York’s public lands by sharing their experiences through social media and blogs.

“Social media is a powerful tool for promoting stewardship efforts in wild places,” said ADK’s education director Julia Goren in a statement sent to the press. “ADK’s Stewardship Ambassador program will help us reach people where they are and help inspire people to protect their public lands.” » Continue Reading.

The Adirondack Park Agency’s proposal to amend its definition of a Travel Corridor was prompted by the state’s desire to build a rail trail between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake, but the change also could affect another rail corridor in the news.

We mean the line between North Creek and Tahawus. This is where Iowa Pacific Holdings has been storing used oil-tanker cars, much to the consternation of state and local officials.

As reported in the March/April issue of the Adirondack Explorer, local officials and others are now talking about someday converting this corridor into a rail trail. However, the story points out that there are legal questions, among them: since the corridor passes through forever-wild Forest Preserve, would it be lawful to create a rail trail suitable for road bikes? » Continue Reading.

What follows is a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo from the Adirondack Mountain Club’s Executive Director and Counsel Neil Woodworth.

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We write to ask that you amend your proposed State Budget and legislative proposals in order to restore existing provisions of Real Property Tax law 534 and 542 that annually authorize the payment of ad valorem taxes to Adirondack and Catskill taxing districts hosting the NYS Forest Preserve. » Continue Reading.

ADK (Adirondack Mountain Club) has released the second edition of its hiking guide, Views from on High: Fire Tower Trails in the Adirondacks and Catskills. Revised and redesigned, it includes a new chapter describing fire towers outside of both parks. The intervening years have seen what coauthor Jim Schneider refers to as “fire tower fever,” a sweeping enthusiasm that has helped prompt restoration of numerous towers and their trails.

Written by John P. (Jack) Freeman and Jim Schneider, Views from on High enables hikers, history buffs, and others fond of Adirondack and Catskill trails to visit and learn about 30 historic fire towers. Detailed trail descriptions are accompanied by numerous photographs and maps as well as an essay about these structures written by historic preservationist Wesley H. Haynes. The new chapter, Beyond the Blue Line, by tower aficionado Jacob C. (Jake) Wilde, describes 13 additional fire towers, three of them demonstration towers. » Continue Reading.

ADK (Adirondack Mountain Club) will open Johns Brook Lodge (JBL) to the public this winter for the first time in decades. Caretaker service will be offered at the lodge for up to 10 guests on weekends.

Johns Brook Lodge is located on a 26-acre parcel of private property a 3.5-mile hike in from the Garden Parking Area, which serves as an access for much of the Adirondack High Peaks near Keene Valley. Built in 1925, the lodge sleeps 28 guests in co-ed bunkrooms in the summer. During July and August the stay includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner. From mid-May to late-June and Labor Day to Columbus Day the lodge operates under caretaker service where guests provide and cook their own food and have access to the JBL kitchen. » Continue Reading.

The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) owns land with trailheads for some of the most popular mountains in the High Peaks Wilderness, but you wouldn’t know that from their recent promotions on social media and traditional print publications. That’s because the club does not want to exacerbate overcrowding in the High Peaks.

Instead of encouraging people to climb Mount Marcy and Algonquin Peak, ADK is teaching people backcountry ethics, including Leave No Trace principles. “People are coming no matter what, so we don’t need to promote it, and what we need to promote is how to recreate responsibly,” said Julia Goren, ADK’s education director and summit-steward coordinator.

The education campaign is just one of several ways that ADK, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and other organizations are addressing the overcrowding issue. » Continue Reading.

ADK has released the fifth edition of its Adirondack Mountain Club Northville-Placid Trail in time for the Northville-Placid Trail’s 95th anniversary. The newest edition in ADK’s Forest Preserve Series of Adirondack and Catskill guides, this volume marks the relaunch of the series.

Edited by Jeff and Donna Case of Mattydale, Onondaga County, the volume has been revised and redesigned, including a return to a smaller, more convenient size. When they conclude this year’s trip on the NPT in May, the authors will have hiked the trail twenty-eight times.

The new edition’s arrival is a celebration of another sort as well: the text includes a detailed description of the long-awaited reroute of the Northville-Placid Trail’s (NPT’s) southern approach completed in 2015 that eliminated about 10 miles of road walking. Originally 132 miles long, reroutes and trail changes have extended the NPT to 138.6 miles. » Continue Reading.

The Adirondack Mountain Club has published Cycling Routes of the St. Lawrence River Valley and Northern Adirondacks, a cycling guidebook in electronic form.

Two cycling trip leaders in the ADK Laurentian Chapter, Tom Ortmeyer of Potsdam, and John Barron of Ottawa, ON have incorporated experience gained over a number of years of leading trips on both the Canadian and U.S. sides of the St. Lawrence into a guidebook that will appeal to cyclists of all levels of fitness and ability.

The region is divided into five areas: the Northern Foothills of the High Peaks; the Northwestern Adirondacks; Massena/Cornwall area; Potsdam/Canton area; and the Thousand Islands. Each area offers several days of riding. » Continue Reading.

Marcy Dam was my first tool pack-in, back in the summer of 2012. I was fresh out of finals week, the airless world of fluorescent screens and dim libraries, and wholly intoxicated by the smell of balsam fir, the sun glinting off Heart Lake, the entire summer before me. It was late May, but the morning was already warm.

Outside the Wiezel Trails Cabin, my fellow first-years and I practiced tying-on — the artful process of lashing a share of gear and tools to one’s pack-frame with parachute cord. I situated a box full of cans of tuna and pineapple on my frame’s shelf and pulled the cord tight across the cardboard, securing it with a clumsy half-hitch. Holding the frame steady with my knee, I looked at the massive pile of tools beside me and tried to envision how they could all fit onto this small rectangle of metal, which would then, somehow, be strapped to my body. » Continue Reading.

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